213374U

Yup. The tradition of free speech protection is one of the few things I'm legit jelly of Americans for. It's not just edgy "comedians" and poor right-wing figures that are oppressed for crimethink, though. Recently a leftard actor was sued here for, essentially, blasphemy (technically committing an "offense against religious sentiment"). The complaint should have been thrown out immediately, but it wasn't, and once it goes to trial, he could face hefty fines. And it's only going to get worse because nobody gives a crap about anything, nobody believes in anything. Systematic brainwashing has been going on for generations that has rendered people unable to tell the difference between what is unlawful and what is wrong, so when someone steps out of line for whatever reason, the majority response is "herp derp shoulda respected the law" rather than stopping to examine whether the law makes sense and is fair. ****ing disgrace, is what it is.

No such thing as bad publicity.

I can stop anytime I want to!

Same here. I played it with a friend and after a certain point where you no longer need real tactics to win because you're steamrolling everything with your plasma miniguns, the game gets stale fast. We quit about two missions before the end, watched the ending on YT. Still, it was a good 20 hours of old school fun.

A) From the state's coffers, evidently B) Money is created primarily by the action of private banks, through their fractional-reserve system... meaning that for the most part, money in circulation doesn't exist outside of balance sheets Personally, I'm undecided on the whole UBI thing, because I'm scared as hell of the potential it has to create a large mass of people wholly dependent on the state for subsistence, which gives anyone in control of the state way more leverage than I'm comfortable with. The way state-provided privileges worked in the Soviet Union illustrates this point well enough.

Close, but no cigar: "Each game featured paid loot boxes containing items which could be traded, providing the trader economic value. Trading items provided the player with earning money should a rare item drop from the loot box. As a result, these games violate the rules of chance per the gaming commission [...] Six of the ten games investigated with loot boxes were found to contain items which could not be traded. These titles were found to be in compliance with gambling laws; however, the Gaming Authority was still critical over how these were implemented." (emphasis mine) So, Battlefront II would be in the clear, but PUBG and CSGO are probably going to have to do something about their model. I wonder if Valve saw this coming when they made changes to their CSGO item trading policy just a few weeks ago. Also, they apparently want to make it a EU-wide thing. This is a good thing because it's going to put a dent in professional cheat programmers' profits, hopefully driving some of them out of business. But beyond that I don't think it'll make much difference—strong consumer-side response as with SWBF2 is probably a much more effective way to fight the practice than hoping for regulators to find their asses with both hands.

I get the feeling that you're not being completely serious. They do say that "the love of money is the root of all evil" for a reason, you know? More seriously, you may be on to something. Are you familiar with time banks? JES may not want to trade you a Deadfire key for some farm fresh eggs and a bunch of tomatoes (his loss), but he could be more open to an exchange of services considering that you're an engineer that's good with... uh... engineering stuff. Crazy, perhaps, but less so than crypto, and less vulnerable to a catastrophic market crash & burn, 1600s Netherlands-style...

ITT: the economy is simultaneously a non-zero sum game and a zero-sum game, or How to Pull Oneself Up by the Bootstraps.

Well they are in MW:O so i think they could be in Nope. HG's lawsuit against HBS was recently thrown out, but the one against Piranha Games (some of whose assets were leased to HBS) hasn't been decided yet. Until that is resolved at least, no unseen. edit: but... but... there are unseen in that list... seems like these are only Inner sphere mechs, no clans? You tell me man, I only work here. From what I've read, HG's complaints against HBS covered only a few specific designs. The fate of the rest of the unseen is to be decided in the other lawsuit against PGI. So perhaps in add-ons further down the line. In any case, I'm sure that "mods will fix it".

Well they are in MW:O so i think they could be in Nope. HG's lawsuit against HBS was recently thrown out, but the one against Piranha Games (some of whose assets were leased to HBS) hasn't been decided yet. Until that is resolved at least, no unseen. edit: but... but... there are unseen in that list...

I enjoyed the follow-up campaign, but hated the combat design. It's like every other enemy was a grenadier and 75% had the stun immunity cyberware. Stupid easy if you were a fire mage, a pain in the ass if you weren't and didn't get Duncan's magnet arm. If you had to drag yourself to play the main campaign to the end though, it probably won't change your overall opinion of the game. I'm kinda disappointed that HBS seem to have abandoned Shadowrun after putting together the engine and a ton of assets. Looks to me that they could make good money by pumping out more modules, both Dragonfall and HK were well received.

Yeah, and the contention that tech unemployment doesn't really exist as evidenced by some engineer learning AutoCAD is pretty lulzy when we're talking about things like lawyers possibly becoming obsolete as a profession thanks to machine learning. Haha, guess they should have studied compsci instead. Who's the math nerd now huh? Wait. What do you mean by machines that can program machines?!

That's pretty cool. Does that gig bring in some decent monies? ...enough to pay for my vices, at least. I'm sitting at 35 merkels per session which is towards the cheap end. Honestly I'd do it for free, but you know... Most importantly, people generally will take training much more seriously (and therefore see results) if they are paying for it than if it's free. Whether it's a cause-effect thing or a result of people only being willing to pay if they are already serious, I don't know, but that's how it is.

The thought of you, of all people, calling someone else, anyone, uneducated, is Monty Python-quality absurd comedy. Keep at it though... it's one of the few things I don't see a sweatshop in Shenzhen outcompeting you at anytime soon. I also chuckled at your confusing "logical fallacy" with "economic facts I am ignorant of". If anyone, it's you who's committing a logical fallacy. Been working since before I finished high school, by the way. Current stretch (after being laid off due to corporate "restructuring") is three years where I'm now, no vacations (got that sweet sweet $$$ instead), turned down promotions because **** that ****, while moonlighting as a personal trainer. But that's cool because it's my choice. A choice that sadly not everyone can make.

Maybe malice is behind the change, but UBI was not exactly a fully-fledged "thing" to be shut down, it was a 2000 person experiment which was ran more like a variant on unemployment benefits. They aren't getting rid of welfare, just changing they're approach. Social programs have costs. The Nordic countries in general rely not on any particular social-structural magic, but oil tax and partially nationalized banking sectors to prop up the country. In a highly competitive world where capital is fluid, it's very much not clear that UBI can become a permanent commodity without a nation owning rights to revenue streams. You're thinking of Norway, actually. Neither Finland nor Sweden have any revenues from oil... or production, for that matter. And yes, it's precisely the fact that it's a "highly competitive world where capital (but not people) is fluid" and nations as the collective representation of peoples not really owning anything of worth because everything that's worth a damn has long been subjected to privatization schemes that's the problem.

Ah, yes. The obligatory deluded small business owner who dreams of becoming the next Amancio Ortega. If I truly contributed nothing to society, it would be different, numb nuts. The catch is that work or not, you are forced to pay taxes. Then one day you are out of work through no fault of your own, tough luck! No "free money" for you, even though you've been supporting the racket for years. F you, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and stop demanding handouts! You're right on one point, though. I can't do what politicians do. I actually have principles—and if I didn't I'd be moving drugs. Gotta have some self-respect. PS. they finally let you off probation sweetie? Hmm. See, I don't approve of censorship, but dummies like you give ammunition to pro-censorship dummies...

The right-wing strikes again. They aren't just shutting down UBI, they are also modifying their unemployment benefits program to "incentivize" (read: punish) long-term benefits recipients. People need to work! It's just not the state's problem if there is no work to be had, we support small government and small business (but big business is no concern of ours). So pull yourself up by the bootstraps and stop suckling from the state's teat yadda yadda. It would be one thing if they had scrapped the program based on researchers' findings at the test's conclusion, but this is a political decision made by professional good-for-nothings who pocket €6k+/mo of taxpayer money while denying everyone else the same privilege.

Satellite Reign for free.

There's that scene in ESB that has TIE Bombers dropping ordnance on asteroids in much the same fashion. Unless the asteroids are made of strongly ferromagnetic minerals, the magnetic thing don't fly. But really, why bother with fighters, bombing runs, and general heroics? Just slap a hyperdrive on a hot dog stall and point it at the "problem". Pow, we win, let's go for some death sticks. I mean, sure. Star Wars is basically synonymous with "rule of cool". But it's lame af to write a deus ex machina that renders the whole plot of the previous movies moot... twice.

I might be misremembering how it's presented, but I don't think at that point it's stated that Luke knows anything about Snoke—he only talks about "darkness growing" in Ben. The Snoke angle seemed more a reflection in hindsight to me. So at the time, Luke had no one to confront but Ben. He goes to his hut to do just that, gets some ominous visions about Padmé dying Death & Destruction, chits a brick, and by the time he can collect himself, Ben already has the excuse he's long been looking for to express his inner edgy teenager. I was amused by Luke's rant about how useless Jedi really are. Straight out of reddit material.

And he didn't. He just had the one moment of weakness, of hesitation, which makes him human—unlike a certain other protagonist. ROTJ Luke showed that he can be one angry mofo, all because pops teased him about his sister a little. That's the only part of the movie I actually liked, tbh. Other than that, it's trash, and I'm feeling pretty smug right now that I saw it coming after TFA and avoided giving Disney money. And of course I'm 100% certain that nobody connected to no entertainment giants whatsoever called Mark Hamill and suggested he reconsider his somewhat less-than-rapturous public feelings about these steaming turds. No siree.

literally Hitler'd

I don't think they ever meant to go toe to toe with, say, Larian. They are seriously linear games, and their strengths are mostly narrative: the writing, the setting, and the atmosphere. There isn't all that much C&C, you barely get to develop party members, and combat is bare-bones at best. Remember that Dragonfall was originally developed as a DLC for Shadowrun Returns, after the unexpected success of the game. I don't think they actually had the systems in place to make a "proper" PC RPG, with all the features old timers like us would expect in a title by Obsidian, for instance. I think Battletech will give us a better idea of what they are actually capable of, systems-wise, when they have a proper budget to work with. That being said, if you liked Dragonfall and Hong Kong, I would strongly recommend you try The Caldecott Caper and CalFree in Chains. Superb user generated content, which gives the original HBS campaigns a run for their money. Co-op rule. It's basically a more unforgiving GTA in a jungle setting, with some "military shooter" touches thrown in for good measure. I don't think I'd play it solo, but in co-op it's a blast. We'll probably purchase it after the trial weekend ends, it's so good.

Considering that the vast majority of the Wehrmacht brass just went about their lives after the war and some even helped build the Bundeswehr, I'd say the odds of any repercussions directly affecting a flag officer (let alone one that's already retired) are about as high as Syria paying for the tomahawks. Even in the most extreme of nuclear apocalypse scenarios, my money is on these types just waiting it out in hardened shelters.